Lead generation is becoming increasingly challenging for B2B companies. Even the big names out there are spending $2 - $10 to get $1 in new ARR. This is especially true in markets that are more mature. It becomes less sales efficient to grow a company beyond a certain threshold, not more efficient as you might expect.
Small to mid-sized companies that are cash funded need to run efficiently out of necessity because operating profitably is detrimental. This means that they need to be that much better than their larger competitors.
Here is the playbook that has lead to success for TekStack and our customers. Also included are some highlights on what is not working.
Recommended Approach
- Tightly define your Ideal Customer Profile. To get 10 new customers, you need a market of 2000 accounts. That is a very narrow definition.
- Go with a targeted account centric approach. Get those accounts into the system. There are lots of research methods out there. We've found that LinkedIn is the best source of data for accounts and contacts.
- Use Outbound across three channels simultaneously.
- Cold calling can be effective, but it needs to be high dialing volumes and needs to be combined with email and LinkedIn channels.
- Three touches in one day will make the contact take notice and make it easier to get their attention on the next email.
- You can combine high volume and high touch outbound sequences. Ideally, combine outbound sequences with email marketing campaigns. Only 5 of 100 buyers for your product are in market at any given time. 70 of the 95 still need to be educated on the value of what you do. They may recognize a problem but not solutions to the problem.
- Combine outbound with social presence. Every potential buyer, before they reach back to you, will want to check out your company, and you. You need to make sure your website and LinkedIn presence is up to date and active. We recommend three posts per week across the company and your thought leader.
- If you have the budget for it, combine the above with retargeting ad campaigns. LinkedIn, YouTube pre-roll, and Google retargeting will place ads in front of the buyers that visit your site, assuming contacts who visit from your outbound sequences.
- Create landing pages on your website and put a lot of focus and attention into the problems your products and services are solving for customers.
More Stuff that Works
- Community based associations or events.
- YouTube content and video. This has now replaced SEO search because buyers know that Google search is just going to give them sponsored links.
- In real life events.
- Content, content, content. Long form blog, social media posts, video; everything. Buyers want to get educated.
- Partnerships.
Stuff that isn't Working Well Anymore
- SEO. 10 years ago, SEO was really effective, but 2015 onward inbound has been dominated by paid ad search over SEO. Google has completely monetized search. If you don’t have web domain authority established, it can be costly to get it done. You need to invest in off page SEO through backlinks.
- Search Ads. Too expensive, too competitive, especially in mature markets
- Its possible to do these two things right, but you’ll need to spend big. $10K+ monthly at a minimum. You need to figure out if $120K in spend is going to get you $120K in new ARR. Probably not. Most off page SEO agencies charge $2-4K to optimize one page.
Need extra help? Don't have time? TekStack's experienced marketing team to the rescue! You can find out about our marketing services here. We take on all the positioning, content, social, data research, and outbound sequencing on behalf of our customers at less than half the cost of a junior marketer!